Monday, February 20, 2017

Fight for Your Life (1977)

According to William Lustig, CEO of cult-movie distributor Blue
Underground,the original negative for the racially charged exploitation flickFight for Your Lifefell victim to Hurricane Sandy while being stored in New Jersey, Seeing as how the movie
depicts a vile racist terrorizing a black pastor, it’s tempting to wonder if
the destruction of the print wasn’t so much an accident as a deliberate act of
God. After all, Fight for Your Life contains so much
cruel ignorance and senseless violence that one can imagine a vengeful deity smiting
the negative. In any event, the picture survives in digital form, so anyone who
wants to spend 80-siomething minutes watching a demented redneck and his accomplices gang-rape the pastor’s daughter, kill various innocent bystanders, and psychologically torture the clergyman can do so at their leisure. Fight for Your Life is relatively well
made for a film of its type, and the movie benefits from vigorous performances.
The picture is also of mild interest for genre-cinema fans because it contains
one of William Sanderson’s few starring roles. Known for his work in movies (Blade Runner), dramatic television (Deadwood), and sitcoms (Newhart), he’s among the industry’s most
versatile players, so he’s long since made artistic amends for appearing in
this, his first big-screen project. Plus, truth be told, he’s pretty good in Fight for Your Life, in the sense that
he’s utterly repugnant in every scene. Rarely will you be more eager for a
character to die.

The flick begins with Jessie Lee Kane (Sanderson)
and two accomplices escaping from a prison-transport vehicle. Hewing to the
familiar Desperate Hours formula, the
filmmakers place an unlikely refuge in Jessie Lee’s path, because he stumbles
across the home of African-American minister Ted Turner (Robert Judd). Jessie
Lee and his thugs kill people who approach the house and torment those inside,
beating the minister and committing the aforementioned sexual assault. The
Turners grow more defiant as the hours drag on, so at one point Ted’s wheelchair-bound grandmother unloads on the gun-toting Jessie Lee:
“I’ll tell you something, Mr. Poor White Trash—you ain’t nothing but what you
got in your hand! Your pappy shoulda thought of that before he stuck it in your
mammy!” Given the predictable plot, it’s only a matter of time before the
Turners get the better of their attackers. Meanwhile, police officers chasing the fugitives piece clues together—will they arrive in time to rescue the
Turners, or to prevent the Turners from exacting revenge? In lieu of imaginative plotting,
Fight for Your Life has a passable
degree of suspense and a nauseating amount of hatred. Not only does
Jessie Lee constantly spew the n-word, but he bombards his hostages with every
other emotional, physical, and verbal humiliation he can imagine.